“Will you come in?” she asked.
“No; Nasmyth’s waiting. I’m glad you came with me, but I won’t say good-by. I’ll look forward to the journey we’re to make together through British Columbia.”
She held out her hand; in another moment he turned away, and she walked on to the house with a strange sense of depression.
CHAPTER XXII
STARTLING NEWS
It was snowing in the northern wilderness and the bitter air was filled with small, dry flakes, which whirled in filmy clouds athwart the red glow of a fire. A clump of boulders stood outlined beside a frozen river, and behind the boulders a growth of willows rose crusted with snow, while beyond them, barely distinguishable, were the stunted shapes of a few birches. So far the uncertain radiance reached when the fire leaped up, but outside it all was shut in by a dense curtain of falling snow.
It had been dark for some time, and Lisle was getting anxious as he lay, wrapped in a ragged skin coat, in a hollow beside a boulder. A straining tent stood near the fire, but the big stone afforded better shelter, and drawing hard upon his pipe, he listened eagerly. The effort to do so was unpleasant as well as somewhat risky, for he had to turn back the old fur cap from his tingling ears; and he shivered at every variation of the stinging blast. There was nothing to be heard except the soft swish of the snow as it swirled among the stones and the hollow rumble of the river pouring down a rapid beneath a rent bridge of ice.
The man had spent the early winter, when the snow facilitates traveling, in the auriferous regions of the North, arranging for the further development of the mineral properties under his control. That done, he had, returning some distance south, struck out again into the wilds to examine some alluvial claims in which he had been asked to take an interest. It was difficult to reach the first of them; and then he had spent several weeks in determined toil, cutting and hauling in wood to thaw out the frozen surface sufficiently to make investigations. Crestwick had accompanied him, but during the last few days he had gone down to a Hudson Bay post with the owners of the claim, who were returning satisfied with the arrangements made. His object was to obtain any letters that might have arrived, and Lisle, going on to look at another group of claims, had arranged to meet him where he had camped.